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The morning after the bridge disaster in Baltimore. Rescue workers are looking for missing people who survived the collapse of the steel structure. In the middle of the night, a container ship rammed one of the support pillars - the bridge collapsed a few seconds later. At this time, maintenance work was being carried out on the roadway and several workers are missing. How many exactly is currently unknown. According to the shipping company, the ship's crew remained uninjured.
Jayme Krause was working near the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge, loading boxes into a warehouse, when the ground suddenly shook.
Jayme Krause, eyewitness
»Everything shook. I thought I might have hit something. Then I asked a few colleagues: “Did you just feel that? And everyone said: “Yeah, man, it was like a loud rumble, like a clap of thunder! We don't know what it was."
Krause and her colleagues went to the door - by then the bridge had almost completely collapsed.
Jayme Krause, eyewitness
"It was just a shocking sight because you've lived here your whole life and seen this thing your whole life, and then one day you walk out and it's no longer there."
The bridge was more than 50 years old and a good 2.5 kilometers long and crossed the mouth of the Patsapsco River. The cause of the collision is still unknown. Ian Firth is a bridge engineer and explains why the structure collapsed so quickly.
Ian Firth, bridge designer
“A ship this heavy exerts a very large load of several thousand tons when it hits something solid. And the ship obviously hit the bridge support. It is not surprising that the bridge collapses because the support is a relatively weak structure when you look at it, a kind of scaffolding with individual legs. So the bridge simply collapsed due to this very large impact force.
Once the rescue operation is complete, there will be a causal investigation, according to the Maryland Department of Transportation. A targeted attack is currently not assumed.